Gerry Adams steps down, what now for Sinn Fein and Irish Unity?

34 years after he deposed Ruadhri O Bradaigh (Rory Brady) accusing Brady of a “sop to unionism” when Brady sat down to listen to Unionist and Loyalist needs for a United Ireland, Gerry Adams steps down, having achieved far less, and no sign of agreeance to a United Ireland from Loyalism like that there was in Rory Bradys time.

So, what will his legacy be? Will it be Sinn Fein as a party moving to a pro choice position, and what are we as voters to make of that?

Ruairi O Bradaigh and Gerry Adams at the 1986 Sinn Fein Ard Feis – Adams deposed Brady in 1983 for Brady talking with Unionists / Loyalists about their terms for a United Ireland. Calling it a “sop to unionism”, the comment is remembered in popular recollection as “orange sop”. Adams settled for less thirty years on, with no talk from Unionism about the possibility of a United Ireland at all.

Gerry Adams has many quotes, famous and infamous, and he added to them today saying that Leo Varadkar should be more like Michael Collins than Hugh Grant. A cute soundbite, bar a so called anti partitionite just called the man whose acceptance of partition set the scene for the Civil War, and whose order of the senseless killing of Henry Wilson caused the Civil War as Republicans were blamed for it by Churchill, he said Varadkar should be more like him as if Collins did good for Ireland compared to Hugh Grant.

Why should Varadkar be more like Michael Collins than Hugh Grant, as Gerry Adams said at todays Sinn Fein Ard Fheis? What did Hugh Grant ever do against Ireland?What did Hugh Grant ever do against Ireland? Did he cause a civil war, did he shoot his own people?

But the cry to the commonest ear reached its audience, ignorant of all this, and it was a PR victory as he preached to the gallery.

Sure I fault Fine Gael for austerity, for evictions, all all that, but for a party with a semi defunt paramilitary on its back wilfully did NOTHING to intimidate banks to back off from seizing homes when they were more than prepared to “go back to war” if their demands in the North were not met?

Im sure a late night visitation ( similar to what was done to Emergency Men in the Land War times) to bankers and bailiffs would make them think twice of evicting Irish families for banks profits. An admitted 200 have died of suicide as a result in the last few years alone.

Theres more to uniting Ireland and serving the needs of the people than erasing an international border on a map, which Adams ignores, like all politicians.

One of the infamous quotes of Gerry Adams apart from “they haven’t gone away you know” was that Catholics who supported the Union with Britain as “the wrong kind of Catholics”… making others ponder that in that line of thinking are Protestants who support a United Ireland the wrong kind of Protestant?

And, talking of the wrong kind of Catholic, the party based on the rights of Catholics, and in the tradition of opposing the Penal Laws, support of the Land issue, seems to have taken a bit of an about turn, making the DUP which is still pro-life, and the Orange Order which espouses the same, more Catholic in policy than Sinn Féin itself.

The Protestant Voice providing a moral weight in the light of the loss of moral authority from the Catholic church

This shows why we need Unionists taking their place in a United Ireland, as the two states on the island are like tables with a leg missing, and Unionists would provide a honest Christian voice that Catholics would identify with without the blood and thunder of Maynooth which covered up its own sex scandals and child abuse while condemning people for having sex before marriage, and demonising women for it, driving many to have abortions to cover the shame hyped up by the church, which is far from a pro life effect for a supposed pro life message.

So, why are Sinn Féin moving to pro choice?

Its all about power and votes, its populism, as is its move to agree to coalition as a junior partner, which will beg the question which anti austerity policies it adopted to build its base will it abandon to get and keep power?

The irony here is that the party of the rebels of 1916, as it sees itself, is bringing in policies and serving an agenda that would be bitterly opposed by those same rebels in 1916.

Sure, they did not – mostly anyway – rebel for a Catholic state, but they did for a state with a Catholic ethos, which is the same as a Protestant ethos, or Moslem or Jewish for that matter.

But, in their name, Sinn Féin does more to kick the Pope than the Orange Order, faulting – rightly – the hierarchy for covering up child abuse, a charge it as a party has been equally guilty of.

But thats politics. Politics is a dirty game, and policies like laws were made to be broken.

The faux socialist politics of the global pro choice political block serves the interests of capitalism: the party till you drop, drink, drugs and free for all sex culture that abortion “solves” the consequences of, serves the interests of capitalism.

Its promoted as working class freedom from church rule, a realisation of the sexual revolution,

Who profits from it? Rich medical firms benefit from abortion procedures and medications, at the expense of the poor, or the taxes of the state.

Rich firms can pressurize women workers to choose their careers over family, kill the kid and keep your career, or keep the kid and never break the glass ceiling.

And who profits from the uber party and shag around culture? The drinks firms like Diageo, the clothing firms, the pub and nightclub chains, and a sea of human misery is pooling generation upon generation as the poor chase the idea given by a complicit media which also profit from this, and society pay the price.

While the people party, and live the “good life”… they have the eye off the ball of curruption, have a lower expectation – take the capitalist lie that we should rent now own our homes, accept poor wages, accept that marraige and jobs are not for life – and so are easy manipulated to those who exploit them as a source of finance.

So what is the answer?

So, we are too far east before, and too far west now. Whats the idea happy medium?

We cant go back to what we were. Before, people were demonised for having sex before marraige, yet most of those couples went on to marry and have happy marraiges. A common sense approach where you sleep together when in a realtionship as opposed to random one night stands promoted as being sexually liberated in the media and sub culture of today would look like the way to go, but thats not whats promoted by the media which portray “The Only Way is Essex” as the standard for life, as if its all the working classes can aspire to.

And its not. The working classes are more than just a money source for firms, a cheap labour pool for firms, and a market for speculators.

Can Sinn Féin be a voice for these? I have before called for a loose alliance of the pro life left to step in for a secular voice for a ant abortion and pro society ethos to be promoted for the future in Ireland. Unless a new, non power hungery generation come through the ranks I cant see Sinn Fein been that voice.

Looking forward to a United Ireland

More pressing, for a united Ireland, for all their talk of wanting Unionists to be part of Ireland, and we have more in common with them than we realise, that is true, and Rory Brady told them that, was talking with them about that and got ousted for talking to Loyalists about that.

And for that I will never forgive either Gerry Adams or Martin McGuinness.

What Would a United Ireland have looked like, or will it look like?

We could have our united Ireland by now. No hunger strikes, no Enniskillen bombing, no Omagh. We could have had Bobby Sands, the Peoples Own TD. We could have had a weak federal parliment in Dublin alternating between FF / DUP and FG / UUP with SF / Labour / SDLP as an alternative voice.

The power sharing insisited on for the North to give Catholics a guarantteed voice, that could have been done for a united Ireland parliament to give the north and Protestants a guaranteed voice. A sort of 32 County Power Sharing, as opposed to but akin to the current 6 county version.

This could be a possibility for the future should we have a United Ireland.

So what now for Adams? He will bask in his glory, join the Tony Blair / Enda Kenny dinner talk circuit and us, the people, have to sort it all out for ourselves, and hope it doesnt all dissolve into conflict again.